Free Republic

For fifteen years, [Robyn Gritz] devoted her life to investigating the September 11, 2001 Al Qaeda attack on the Pentagon, helping to rescue Western hostages and tracking down global terrorists. She was detailed to the CIA and worked closely with the Defense Intelligence Agency, which was led by General Michael Flynn. Throughout this time, her FBI bosses gave her excellent or outstanding performance reviews. But in 2012 her career hit a brick wall when she began working for Special Agent Andrew McCabe and his leadership team. It was then that she received her first negative performance rating and was subsequently...

In its coverage of John McCain and Sarah Palin in Cedarburg Wi. today, the Associated Press reported: "More than a thousand people jammed the streets to see McCain and the Alaska governor, his suprise choice for the vice presidential nomination who proved to be the hit of the convention." Elsewhere, the Wisconsin State Patrol estimated that over 12,000 people were in the "attendance area" at the event and that up to THREE TIMES that number were surrounding the "attendance area."

Governor Jim Doyle today announced new efforts to keep Milwaukee safe. The Milwaukee anti-crime legislative package will fight crime and get illegal guns off the street by closing loopholes, improving information sharing with law enforcement, and using advanced technology to improve crime tracking. ”There is nothing more important to the future of Milwaukee and the future of this state than ensuring the safety of our kids and families,” Governor Doyle said. All of us must work together to get illegal guns off our street and put a stop to senseless acts of violence in our neighborhoods.” To ensure the safety...

One month after the Vatican reasserted its claim that the Catholic Church is the one true church, Milwaukee's Catholic auxiliary bishop is about to find himself in what some might assume would be an uncomfortable position - addressing more than 1,000 Lutherans. "I know I want to begin with the recognition of our unity in Christ through baptism," said Bishop Richard J. Sklba, who will offer a brief greeting on behalf of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops when he speaks Friday in Chicago to delegates at the national assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Sklba, who is...

Bought the latest Milwaukee Magazine for the "Catholics in Crisis" cover story. Among those interviewed for the story were Bishop Richard Sklba and Father Javier Bustos. The article recounts how Bishop Sklba chaired a Catholic Biblical Association of America task force that produced a 1979 report suggesting there is "no historical reason not to ordain women." If that's not enough, here's more historical revisionism via the article's interview with Fr. Bustos, who came here in 1995. "But by the time the report was published, John Paul II had become pope and the church was moving in a different direction. Sklba,...

Not content with the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church on the question of homosex "marriage," a well-known rebel priest decides to run an opposing opinion in his St. Matthias parish bulletin. The Milwaukee Priests' Alliance (a union-wannabe bunch of priests) issued a press release concurring with the dissent. Fr. "Chuck" Schramm (whose picture is missing something...) of St Mary's/Hales Corners, also ran the piece with the parish bulletin. The author of the dissent is none other than Fr. Massingale, who (as you will see shortly) is a master of dissembling. He's a colleague of Dan Maguire, a revolting little...

Kathy Sullivan Vandenberg, 64, a member of St. Mary Parish in Waukesha, is one of eight Roman Catholic women who expect to be ordained as priests Monday in an unofficial ceremony the Vatican considers invalid. Unhhh...the Vatican does not "consider" it to be invalid. It IS invalid, period. No consideration is necessary, and none is given. Two of them - who claim that they were later ordained bishops by unnamed male Roman Catholic bishops - will preside Monday with a third woman "bishop." And wouldn't we all like to know who those heresiarch-Bishops are? I have met with Archbishop Dolan....

It was from their success in Texas that George Bush and Karl Rove devised their grand strategy for regaining the "lock" on the presidency that had been the legacy of Nixon and Reagan. Nixon's "New Majority" and the "Reagan Coalition" were built on the same foundation: a united Republican Party to which was added the socially conservative Democrats who would defect to the GOP on "God, gays and guns," and other battleground issues of the culture war. Rove and Bush correctly perceived that, due to immigration, the Nixon-Reagan coalition, composed almost entirely of white voters, was shrinking in relative terms....

We received a letter from Christian Crampton in Newport Beach, Calif., saying: "Regarding your September Editorial ('Your Voice of Orthodox Catholicism, Without Any Strings Attached'), it brought out a word which I would like you to define for me. I've seen it occasionally in the NOR, but you used it more than 10 times in the Editorial. The word is 'neoconservative' (neocon)." Before the September Editorial and especially since then, many people have asked us what a neocon is. Your Editor has followed the neocons for over 35 years, and I have had dealings with many of them (but I...

Just got the jump for this week's America. It's a special edition for the Synod on the Eucharist, which begins next Sunday, 2 October. The top piece comes from Bishop Donald Trautman of Erie, chairman of the BCL -- the USCCB's Committee on the Liturgy. And, guess what, he makes some good and solvent points. [The Instrumentum Laboris for the Synod] fails to recognize real issues facing the church in the contemporary world. The document speaks, for example, of “shadows in the celebration of the Eucharist,” citing “a neglect by the celebrant and the ministers to use proper liturgical vestments...

For about $20.00, (shipping included,) I purchased Bill Tortolano's little book on Gregorian Chant. The publisher, GIA, suggested that it contained "everything you need to know" about the topic, in the utilitarian sense--that is, one could, after reading the book and with some preparation, actually sing and/or train and conduct singers in the use of Chant. That's true. It's an easy, short read, and contains all the technical gobbledygook one needs; for that purpose, it's worth the money. Tortolano also includes a number of common Chants for the Mass, a few hymns, a Latin pronunciation guide, the Psalm-tones, etc.--enough to...

Cologne, Germany - Luke Strand walked toward this city's historic cathedral on Wednesday, quietly reciting the rosary. Distractions squeezed by the 24-year-old Milwaukee man. Exuberant Italian young people, arms linked together, pushed past. Nearby, a large group of Chileans chanted in Spanish. Strand, who is studying to become a priest, smiled at the scene. "I'm tired and exhausted, but this is the beauty of it. We're on a pilgrimage," he said. Strand had traveled to World Youth Day in Cologne - not for solitude, but for solidarity. About 325,000 young Catholics from nearly 200 countries have already arrived for the...

Median weekly earnings of the nation's 103.3 million full-time wage and salary workers were $643 in the second quarter of 2005, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported July 20. This was 0.6 percent higher than a year earlier, compared with a gain of 3.0 percent in the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) over the same period.

Wisconsin Congressman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. has come under fire for second-guessing a federal appeals court ruling in a Chicago drug case. In a letter to the chief judge of the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, Sensenbrenner said a low-level drug dealer should have gotten 10 years in prison instead of just more than eight. While critics say the letter was bizarre, misguided and ethically questionable, a spokesman for Sensenbrenner says the eight-year sentence was illegal and the Menomonee Falls Republican was simply doing his job as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee The letter, the contents of which...

MILWAUKEE — “And we, though many, throughout the earth, we are one body in this one Lord,” goes the popular hymn, One Bread, One Body. It is that line which reflects and helps the Catholic community understand the diversity of cultures within its church. “We have a choice to embrace this growing cultural diversity or resist,” said Sacred Heart Sr. Mary E. McGann at a workshop for musicians at the National Pastoral Musicians Conference in Milwaukee. Sr. McGann is associate professor of liturgy and music at the Franciscan School of Theology and the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, Calif. “God...

MILWAUKEE — It can cause noses to wrinkle in disgust or it can create an environment more conducive to worship. Some pieces remind happy couples of their wedding day, others bring tears to one’s eye at the recollection of a funeral Mass. It is a vital, necessary, and integral part of the Mass. It is the music. While music can enhance or detract from a prayerful experience for one person, musicians are finding it impossible to make everyone happy, for a full-fledged style war is occurring in the Catholic Church. “I believe any style of music may potentially bear the...

American Catholic Bishops this week have made a number of so-called "revisions" to the Dallas Charter that are part of an effort by many bishops and probably the Vatican to eventually remove zero-tolerance for child sex abuse in the Catholic Church. Most alarmingly, a new study is being commissioned at the urging of Dr. Paul McHugh of the National Review Board [citing the Baltimore Sunarticle in the post below] McHugh, once head of the department of psychiatry at John Hopkins, has a long and controversial history of taking anti-law enforcement positions on the treatment of child sex offenders. McHugh was...

The US bishops’ conference is meeting in Chicago this week for their biannual meeting. This is supposed to be the retreat version of their two meetings this year, but some business will be done. (They’re meeting in the Fairmont, a ritzy hotel. There wasn’t a large retreat center or monastery somewhere in the country they could gather at? What kind of message does that send to the average Catholic?) Among the business this week should be discussion of the Scandal. Now that they’ve had the studies that quantify the damage done, they want to look at the causes. If they...

Facts everyone NEEDS to know about the "Traditional" Latin Mass FACT: Even the neotrad “Catholic Encyclopedia” admits the Latin Mass was a radical break with tradition! The REAL Traditional Roman Mass is the Greek Mass of the first three centuries as described by the Apostolic Constitutions and the Apology of St. Justin Martyr. The “Catholic Encyclopedia” written and published in 1913 by diehard "pre-Vatican II" neotrads, was forced to admit that its oh-so-precious “Latin Mass” was a radical and unprecedented break from tradition unlike any that had ever gone before. Just read these shocking quotes from the article “Liturgy of...

Real wages in the US are falling at their fastest rate in 14 years, according to data surveyed by the Financial Times. Inflation rose 3.1 per cent in the year to March but salaries climbed just 2.4 per cent, according to the Employment Cost Index. In the final three months of 2004, real wages fell by 0.9 per cent.The last time salaries fell this steeply was at the start of 1991, when real wages declined by 1.1 per cent.Stingy pay rises mean many Americans will have to work longer hours to keep up with the cost of living, and they...